My turtle seems to hate overripe plantains. The flesh of those I threw inside haven't turned black yet, just the skin.
I gave it three and all it did was take 2-5 bites out of each plantain.
Picky little fella.
I know nobody likes to read this sort of unhappy stuff but as you can see, I don't care.
Part of my motivation for typing this comes from my curiosity in whether any of my relatives visits this blog.
So far, no one else except my brother and his girlfriend knows about this and I've been instructed to keep this quiet unless I'm asked as far as my relatives are concerned.
I'm not breaking this rule because I don't believe my relatives visit this blog at all.
As for the friends who come here, I'd very much appreciate it if you guys just act like you didn't see this. I find it hard to enjoy good food in a depressing atmosphere, plus getting away from this is part of the reason why I've been so active in organizing outings.
My mum has finally been hospitalized. I had called 1777 for a non-emergency private ambulance to get her there.
I only did so because she was at the point where she couldn't even stand up anymore. We needed someone to take care of her since she does not want any males to bathe her and stuff, not even her own sons, and palliative care requires a doctor's recommendation.
Paid $80 to bring her to NUH.
I spent practically the entire afternoon and evening waiting due to the bed shortage. Meanwhile they took 3 hours to finish their assessment and another 3-4 to get her warded. After that, they informed me that since it was after office hours (10pm), there were only a few doctors on duty and we would have to wait because we weren't the only people who needed their attention.
While waiting at the A&E for her to be assessed and warded, I saw this giant banner on an opposite building saying "for the future". The rest were covered by trees and I didn't bother to move to read the rest.
Ironic. The future has no place for people admitted through here, the emergency entrance.
Diagnosis is as bad as expected. It is breast cancer, already stage 4. The constant bleeding, which I thought was an old wound that was prevented from healing by her diabetes, was really caused by the sheer mass of the tumour she had been hiding.
Part of it has also spread to her brain and currently blocking brain fluid. Though not urgent, she will soon require a tube to drain that. The problem is that this temporary solution can only last 10 days.
She had already guessed how bad the cancer was and told me as much weeks ago, mainly because things were the same for my father.
Fortunately she is rational, though slightly incoherent. This started on Sunday, when she said I was "金龟独立". She seemed to know what she was saying. To confirm this, I repeated the words back to her and saw her nod.
She is rational as far as I can tell, so I'm inclined to let her make her own decisions until she is no longer so.
Which brings to mind my personal debate about the responsibility of decision-making. I fear making decisions because I fear the consequences of mistakes. However, one of the consequences of pushing this responsibility to others is that I may not get the outcome I desire, and I must accept that.
To avoid the burden of mistakes, I must also lose control of the things around me.
To simplify it further, it's a choice between potentially making things better or just not actively worsen them. And the responsibility.
I had hoped the incoherence was due to dehydration, but after an entire afternoon and evening on the drip, she still said a few things that made no sense to me and the doctors.
I'm fully prepared to respect her decision to not receive treatment. When she is no longer able to make her own decisions, this is the path I will take.
It is over.
At some point in the future, I will request that she is kept unconscious till the end, just like my father was. It would be the best way to go in the absence of euthanasia.
Almost everything after her death has been prepared. She has told me to get her a short Buddhist funeral, just a simple matter of a few monks chanting for 3 days or so. It does not matter if her siblings come.
She has bought her own slot near my father's in the columbarium. It was depressing but she did it.
Her will has been prepared, so everything will be ok for a while. The ownership of the business has been transferred to me and I have been given access to all related bank accounts except the one in Hong Kong.
I have yet to consider that issue. I will be asking whoever handles her will about that matter. If not, I'll just fly there.
As for the business itself, I estimate that I have enough savings to last more than a year as long as I don't do too badly. My mum could do it when my father passed away without showing her how to handle the business at all, and my buyers and employees would find it in their interests to help me keep this business profitable even if all they care about is money.
Everything ends, good and bad. C'est la vie.
I'm not extremely depressed or anything. My bro and I have been thoroughly prepared emotionally for this. She's been telling us that she was dying for years though I'd always thought she was just depressed.
Denial, anger and acceptance. We've been at the third for months. Her hospitalization merely marks the beginning of the end.
I only wonder if I will be able to prepare my children for life after my death as well as my parents did for us, if I ever have any.
No comments:
Post a Comment